Hot New Music {Album} Beyonce & Jay Z – EVERYTHING IS LOVE | + Details Of Every Song

Beyoncé and Jay-Z have pulled a Beyoncé and Jay-Z andsurprise-dropped yet another album — but this time, as a couple. Their first-ever joint album Everything Is Love — the one that’s been percolating since even before Lemonade and 4:44 — was released on Saturday evening at the end of the duo’s London show on their On the Run Tour II with one casual parting announcement: “Album Out Now.” Out! Now! The nine-song album, complete with one visual component and a bonus track, is streaming in full on Tidal as we speak. With their trilogy recounting marital strife to remarried bliss now complete, what do we make of this closing chapter? From the shots at Trump, the NFL, Spotify, the Grammys, and Kanye West, to the Blue Ivy cameo, to filming a music videoin the Louvre, here’s everything you need to know about the conversation the Carters have caused now.

The Songs

“SUMMER”
The album’s intro is also a reintroduction to Bey and Jay’s marriage, one more stable and seemingly happy. (Bey sings, heavenly, of wanting to make love to her husband and “drown in the depths of you” in the summertime.) It ends, “Love is universal / Love is going to express itself as a form of forgiveness and compassion for each other.” The song was produced by Miami’s own Cool & Dre, who are known for their work with Fat Joe, Ja Rule, The Game, Lil Wayne, and more; Bey and Hov also share producer credits, along with Leon Michels of the El Michels Affair. James Fauntleroy II is a credited co-writer; Rory, of Jamaica’s Stone Love, is a credited vocalist.

“APESHIT”
The only song to the receive the visual treatment so far has an all-star cast: It features Offset and Quavo from Migos (poor Takeoff) as well as Pharrell, who also produced the song with Bey and Hov; they all also wrote the song. On it, Bey rap-sings “I can’t believe we made it” (a reference to their marriage nearly ending), “pay me in equity,” and “get off my dick,” among many other top-notch bars.

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“BOSS”
One of the cockiest songs on the album, “BOSS” was co-produced by Bey, Hov, D’Mile (Janet Jackson), Derek Dixie (Lemonade), and MeLo-X (also Lemonade). Ty Dollas $ign is a featured vocalist and co-writer. On it, Beyoncé raps about setting up her family for a lifetime of wealth that’ll make history (“My great-great-grandchildren already rich / That’s a lot of brown chi’r’en on your Forbes list”) and drops an instant-classic quotable: “I be true balling on these bum whores.” The song ends with a message from Blue Ivy to her younger siblings: “Shout out to Rumi and Sir, love, Blue.” (Blue also featured on her dad’s latest solo album because everyone in this family works overtime.)

“NICE”
Another Pharrell-Bey-Jay production! On which Pharrell also features; all three wrote the song as well. Beyoncé raps about not needing Spotify (see below) or streaming gratification, with the kicker: “I’m so nice, Jesus Christ, I’m better than the hype, I give you life.” She also quotes the “fuck you” line from Half Baked (!). Meanwhile, Jay brags about not showing up to testify before the SECin a case involving the company that now owns his old fashion brand Rocawear: “Yeah, fuck your subpoenas and your misdemeanors / Was too busy touring out all your arenas.”

“713”
The song is named after the Houston area code and sees Beyoncé once again rep her hometown, while also nodding to Jay’s rap history. Cool & Dre, Bey and Hov, and 808-Ray produced it. On the song, Jay interpolates Common’s “The Light.” (There was once a time when Jay said he wanted to rap like the man until he realized that doing so wouldn’t make him famous, so, hey, that’s one way to do it.) The song also samples Drake favorites Hiatus Kaiyote’s “Sphinx Gate” and “The World It Softly Lulls.”

“FRIENDS”
Perhaps the most revelatory track on the whole album, Jay speaks at length about his inner circle, listing them by name — including best friends Tyran “Ty Ty” Smith and Emory “Vegas” Jones, as well as close colleagues like Jay Electronica’s manager Lawrence “Law” Parker III and Jay Brown and his wife Kawanna – and sharing their history together. He also references getting Meek Mill freed from prison, and those T-shirts Kendall and Kylie Jenner sold with Tupac’s face on them (“Y’all put niggas on a t-shirt, it hurts you ain’t never meet ‘em”). Boi-1da, Bey and Hov, and Jahaan Sweet produced the song; The Weeknd’s XO signee Nav co-wrote it.

“HEARD ABOUT US”
Another braggadocio track where Jay all but concedes his rap throne to Beyoncé: “Bitch know me, I been me since the cocaine / Bitch know B, she don’t even need a whole name (It’s Beyoncé, nigga).” The song also interpolates Biggie’s “Juicy” and references filming in the Louvre. It was produced by Boi-1da, Vinylz, Jahaan Sweet, !llmind, and Bey and Hov.

“BLACK EFFECT”
This song opens with a woman defining unconditional love, then evolves into an ode to being in love with your own blackness and becoming a symbol of black wealth. He raps, “Shit I am the culture / I made my own wave, so now they anti-Tidal.” He also references Trayvon Martin, outsmarting the federal government (“The SEC, the FBI, or the IRS / I pass the alphabet boys like an eye-test”), Prince, and Mos Def (“Shining my light on the world just like Umi says”). Bey sings, “I would never let you shoot the nose of my pharaoh.” Cool & Dre and Bey and Hov produced the song. It samples Flower Travellin’ Band’s “Broken Strings.”

“LOVEHAPPY”
The final song is the most transparent Bey and Hov get on the album about the infidelity that almost destroyed their marriage. It was co-produced and co-written by TV on the Radio’s Dave Sitek, and also co-written by session writers Denisia Andrews, Brittany Coney, and Nija Charles, who each have writing credits throughout the album. For the second time on the album, Jay interpolates Common, this time his verse on Erykah Badu’s “Love of My Life.” It also samples Eddie & Ernie’s “You Make My Life a Sunny Day.”

The References

The Infidelity
Only once do Bey and Hov get candid and truthful about the cheating scandal that nearly did in their marriage, confirming that Jay did indeed break his vows, but also confirming that they renewed said vows anyway (as was originally revealed during their On the Run II tour). They begin with a bit of a tense back and forth, where Bey comes dangerously close to revealing the identity of “Becky With the Good Hair” before Jay cuts her off (rude!):

“Yeah, you fucked up the first stone, we had to get remarried

Yo, chill man

We keepin’ it real with these people, right?

Lucky I ain’t kill you when I met that b- (Nah, aight, aight )

Y’all know how I met her, we broke up and got back together

To get her back, I had to sweat her

Y’all could make up with a bag, I had to change the weather

Move the whole family West, but it’s whatever

In a glass house still throwing stones

Hova, Beysus, watch the thrones

(Happy in love).”

Bey then adds that all is forgiven, but not perfect:

“You did some things to me, boy, you do some things to me

But love is deeper than your pain and I believe you can change

Baby, the ups and downs are worth it, long way to go, but we’ll work it

We’re flawed but we’re still perfect for each other

Sometimes I thought we’d never see the light

Went through hell with heaven on our side

This beach ain’t always been no paradise

But nightmares only last one night.”

Kanye West and Drake
Per usual elder rap beef etiquette, Jay weighs in on the drama with subliminals aimed at both Kanye and Drake. On “Boss,” he scolds Drake and Kanye for passing up business opportunities with him at Tidal, where they could’ve been entrepreneurs, to be someone else’s employee (for Drake, Apple Music; Kanye, Adidas and Silicon Valley). Hov specifically takes a jab at Drake for invoicing Kanye and G.O.O.D. Music during his recent beef with Pusha-T (which is a clue for how recently some of these verses may have been written). He raps:

“No cap, false, nigga, you not a boss, you got a boss

Niggas getting jerked, that shit hurts, I take it personally

Niggas rather work for the man than to work with me

Just so they can pretend they on my level, that shit is irkin’ to me

Pride always goeth before the fall, almost certainly

It’s disturbing what I gross (what I gross!)

Survey says you not even close (not even close)

Everybody’s bosses, to the time that pay for the office

To them invoices, separate the men from the boys, over here

We measure success by how many people successful next to you

Here we say you broke if everybody gets broke except for you

Boss!”

On “713,” Jay also raps “And my little baby Blue is like ‘Who gon’ stop us, huh?’” — a reference to his song with Kanye from Watch the Throne. On “LoveHappy,” Jay goes even further and dethrones Kanye from their former shared moniker, instead giving his wife Kanye’s crown: “Hova, Beysus, watch the thrones.” But his most personal and barbed message for Kanye comes in reference to a recent interview Kanye gave where he admitted he was still upset that Jay and Bey did not attend his wedding to Kim Kardashian. He noted that Jay and Bey were likely having marital issues at the time and that is the reason Jay now gives for missing their big day, though he says Kanye should’ve understood and buried the hatchet:

Grammys
Also on “Apeshit,” Jay gives a middle finger to the Grammys for shutting him out this year despite giving him the most nominations of the night: “Tell the Grammy’s fuck that 0 for 8 shit / Have you ever seen the crowd goin’ apeshit?”

Dr. Dre
ON “713,” Beyoncé raps the hook “Representing for my hustlers all across the world (still) / Still dippin’ in my low-lows, girl! (still) / I put it down for the 713 and we still got love for the streets (ow!).” It’s a play on the hook from Dr. Dre’s “Still D.R.E.” The extremely meta irony? Jay-Z himself wrote that original hook for Dre, which is definitely one way to cut sampling costs!

The Bonus Song

For reasons that aren’t clear yet, in addition to the album, Bey and Jay have also uploaded a loose non-album track to Tidal called “Salud!” However, it’s produced by Cool & Dre (and features additional vocals from Dre) and Bey and Hov, so seemingly is also of the Everything Is Love sessions. On it, Bey takes shots at fan and media speculation about her life: “Lord knows it takes hella patience / When your name is a verb and these comments absurd / And they swear they know you better than you know yourself.” Jay-Z also hits back at Donald Trump’s recent comments about Jay’s stumping for Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election. “The only way she filled up the arena was to get Jay-Z,” Trump said. “And his language was so filthy that it made me, like, the most clean-cut human being on earth. It’s true.” Jay’s response? Keep his name out of your mouth.